Page:Spalding's Baseball Guide (1894).djvu/26

 22 campaign they had to face the Westerners on the latter's own fields, and though they fought hard they had work to do to retain third position, but they did it up to September 27th, when the Clevelands ousted them out of third place and sent them to fourth position, in which place they ended the season, with a percentage of .558 to Boston's .667, the team making a good fight under disheartening circumstances. The club's complete record for 1893 appears on page 21.

The season of 1893 was the most successful one the New York club had had since 1889, alike as regards the success of the club's team and its management, and the financial results of the season. They did not win the pennant, to be sure, but they beat out their Brooklyn rival in the race, and that was a result they regarded as next to winning the pennant. But it was the return of the old patronage of 1889 that the New York officials were most rejoiced at; the season, in this respect, being the most gratifying to the club of any for the past four years, as it enabled them to pay off a burden of indebtedness, incurred during the revolutionary years of 1890 and 1891, which had handicapped the club very badly. The return of John M. Ward to the club this year as manager as well as captain, of course, had its reviving effect on the club's local prospects; besides which the introduction of new players in its ranks helped considerably in bringing about the welcome change in its patronage.

The club opened its season of 1893 with even figures in won games with the Boston club, and the remarkable attendance at the opening game on April 28th was greatly encouraging to the club after the costly experience, in loss of patronage, of the previous three years. Closing the brief April campaign on an even footing with the Boston champions, the New Yorkers started in May with favorable prospects, and they kept among the six leaders during the first part of the month, but after the 9th of May the Giants were driven into the second division ranks, where they remained until the end of the May campaign, one or two experiments in retaining fading stars in their team proving costly, the end of the campaign leaving the club occupants of the ninth place in the race, while their old time rivals of Brooklyn stood well up in the van and in second position, and ahead of both Boston and Philadelphia. The June campaign saw the Giants rally well, and by June 13th they were back in